


Avalon Sliding Down

by ratketeering



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: But like it's no big deal don't worry about it, Character Study, Dex is lightly haunted by the ghost of Kurt Cobain, Dissociation, Gen, Implied/Mentioned Suicide attempt, Irresponsible Medication Mixing, Started at the bottom now we're burrowing into the center of the Earth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-20
Updated: 2020-05-20
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:48:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24285367
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ratketeering/pseuds/ratketeering
Summary: Dex falls apart and tries to put himself back together. It's a success — depending on how you define "success".
Comments: 6
Kudos: 10





	Avalon Sliding Down

**Author's Note:**

> Trying to pick apart the why behind murdering a bunch of people THEN asking for help from your old co-worker, in that order.
> 
> Here's some music to go with, if you feel like it: [Avalon Sliding Down the Cliff](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzVGX5nPpjM) or the bomb Patti Smith cover of [Smells Like Teen Spirit](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_ciiCyxOJA).

The drone of a truck horn splits through Dex’s consciousness and the low, thin winter light trickling in through the curtains does the rest. Sleep pours out onto his sheets in little cataracts, spilling faster and faster the tighter he tries to hold on. He keeps his eyes shut as he draws air into his lungs until they start to burn. Slow. Controlled.

 _Controlled_.

He’s got two months left on his lease, but he needs to get the fuck out of this apartment. It had taken until 4AM, but he’d finally fallen asleep, and now some dipshit is honking _right outside_ , blasting rough guitar chords and stilted drums, _I’m worse at what I do best and for this gift I feel bless’d_ , and if it weren’t for the fact that he needs to get to work, he’d be in the street with his fucking MagLite putting someone in the fucking hospital and —

Work.

His eyes shoot open, and he stares into the dim face of his bedside clock. It stares back and reads, in smug carnelian: one one three six A M.

Fuck.

He’s already so late, and it’ll be another thirty minutes, at best, before the train can get him to the office. Bile creeps its way up his esophagus until he can feel it stinging his nose. He can’t bring himself to do anything but stare, transfixed. Deer in headlights, blinking, blinking, blinking Bambi eyes until the blur of wrathful tears has come and gone, spilling hot and allowing him to see, in the bottom right-hand corner of the clock face:

S A T.

Saturday, which means on call, which means— 

His phone buzzes, rattling so hard against the cheap wood of his bedside table that he can feel it in his teeth, and he grabs at it, eager to stop the noise. Hopefully, this isn’t some kind of laser-guided karma. Dare to dream of a full day with no interruptions, no fires to put out, no McDonald’s to smuggle to white collar criminals, expect Tammy Hattley to call you in.

A sigh of relief puffs out from between his lips. It’s a notification from his barber: _1,000 Instagram Followers Giveaway! Enter to win free haircuts, straight-razor shaves, and hot towel service for a year!_ The tendons in his neck go tight and an ache throbs at his temples when he notices the text below the first notification: _+20 more_.

He hesitates as he swipes his thumb down the glass, and the drawer stutters, but expands. There, twenty identical messages, lined up nice and neat: _Delivery failed. Invalid destination or service blocked at destination_.

Sunshine-umber hair flits through the blur behind his eyelids like bird wings.

He grabs the alarm clock and throws it as hard as he can, not bothering to aim. His heart skips at the brittle crack of it smashing against the wood laminate in the living room. The past two days come back to him in a deluge.

Julie’s gone.

He’s got six months until he can work again.

The closest thing he had to a mother is an itch in the back of his throat; the chemical fog of lighter fluid and burned plastic cassette tapes still hanging heavy in the air, even after he’s had the windows open all night.

The words come, unbidden. _I feel stupid and contagious._ He’s used to his brain muttering to itself and misfiring, at this point in his life, so he ignores them as he liberates his limbs from his bedsheets. Clad in nothing but his underwear, he stumbles out to his dining room table. The plastic pharmacy bag crinkles in protest as it scatters three amber bottles and a receipt timestamped with a date two days prior across the table top. All three bottles are upended onto the table, spreading out in a ripple of blue, yellow, and white, and Dex separates them into rough, messy groups without much finesse. He doesn’t even know why he has a fucking table. Not like he has anyone to share it with.

He grabs a loose handful of pills, and they stick, dry and tacky at the back of his throat, as he tries to swallow them. A couple end up back in his mouth. _I feel stupid._ A sharp pressure pierces his foot when he gets up to grab some water, but he doesn’t notice the pain. He _does_ notice the smudge of red on the floor, from a distance. Like an abstract painting, glimpsed from another room. Or a car wreck, flaming on the side of the highway. He doesn’t bother to clean it up, or to bandage his foot. Dr. Mercer’s gone, and order doesn’t live here anymore.

As he’s brushing his teeth, he watches his reflection fade in and out of focus, eyes burning. Like he’s watching the TV set in the boys’ home, the one in the back room with the shitty antenna. Hollow black eyes blink at him from shadowy sockets, cataloguing the bruises painted across the diseased topography of his character. All the scabs written into the script for him to pick at later, until he’s got enough fresh blood to smear it across his posts and lintel.

Mommy was gone before Dex was born. Before he was even conceived.

Daddy put cigarettes out on Dex’s wrists until it got him killed.

God asked Dr. Mercer to choose between Dex and a slow death; she chose death.

It’s all trickled down over time, a fine silt of grave dirt compacted by chemical runoff. Sometime in the night, the weight of it all has overwhelmed his weak scaffolding, and the last two people in his life are gone.

Stubrushpidbrushandbrushconbrushtabrush _geous_ brush _stu_ brush _pid_ brush _and_ brush _con_ brush _ta_ brush _geous_ brush _stu_ brush _pid_ brush _and_ brush _con_ brush _ta_ brush _geous_ brush _stu_ brush _pid_ brush _and_ brush _con_ brush _ta_ brush _geous_. On, and on, and on.

When he spits into the sink, the foam is more blood than toothpaste, and it slices up the porcelain in three messy gashes. Marring it, like he’d marred Julie, like he’d marred Ray. The gouge of pink seethes and pops, little bubbles fizzing into the void until there’s nothing left but watery, red slime. It’s disgusting. No wonder they’d left.

The cut on his foot echoes the stinging between his teeth, and each step he takes toward his closet tears it back open from where it had started to clot. By the time he sits on his bed and pulls on his socks, his skin is stained bright, poppy red all across his right arch. The thick wool makes it itch even more and the fibers insinuate themselves into the wound, but it doesn’t matter anymore.

‘Cramming everything into little boxes didn’t do shit,’ he thinks in a giddy burst. ‘Look where you ended up. Back in the mud with all the other fucking animals.’ He doesn’t know where he’s going but he needs to get out of here, or these walls are going to eat him.

Digging around in the safe for his boot knife, a flash of faded yellow catches his eye. Almost lost in the chasm between a stack of files and a box of ammo is one last cassette, full-sized, with a sunny label that reads _Summer 1998_ in handwriting as familiar to Dex as his own.

He hasn’t celebrated a birthday in years, since back when he was a recruit at Quantico, and it takes him a minute to do the math. Summer 1998 would put him at 16, probably. Most of his memories are a tangled mess of fairytale extremes which oscillate so wildly he doubts almost every single one of them, but summer of ‘98 is just...blank. The negative space between two shapes, defined solely by the events on either side. He remembers _The Memory Remains_ at the top of the hour, every hour, on every rock station in the city, filtering through the din of the freezing dormitory hallway of the boys’ home while his teeth chattered so hard he thought they’d break. He remembers the prism of autumn foliage through the window of the common room in his peripheral vision, eyes fixed on the snowy feed of the last game of the Series, Yankees versus Padres. And he remembers a stark, gaping nothingness in between. 

He grabs the cassette player and thumbs open the door. Putting a full-sized tape into the player feels wrong, alien. Foreboding. When he shuts the door again, he feels like he’s approaching a rabid dog, and his fingers dart back so fast he almost doesn’t put enough pressure behind the touch to close it. The worn ‘Play’ button both pulls at him and repels him, winding the unease in his chest so tight that he stands frozen in the middle of his dining room.

_i feel_

_stuuuuu_

_piiiiiiii—_

The ice machine spits out its current batch in a loud tumble, and he almost jumps out of his skin. He shakes his head, frustrated with himself, and jams the ‘Play’ button until it clicks into place. The pop of static that filters through his headphones should be soothing, but his heart skips faster.

“Hi, Dex,” Dr. Mercer says, her voice damp and fuzzy. Probably holding the microphone too close. Typical. The corners of his mouth tighten in a wan smile, even though he feels like a pair of icy hands are closing around his throat, stroking their ways down into his chest, leaving frostbite burns in their wake.

“I know you feel like you’re not having the greatest summer…

“No, that’s not fair,” she corrects herself. “We’ve talked a lot about being honest with ourselves about how our feelings affect the way we see the world. I know you feel like you’re having a shitty summer, and you _are_ having a shitty summer.

“The worst summer.

“It’s not all in your head, if that’s what you’re thinking. If that’s what I’ve made you think.” She inhales wetly and Dex realizes that it’s not just how close she must have been holding the microphone.

“I guess—” her voice cracks, and Dex winces in pain as she clears her throat, the audio distorting. “I guess I just wanted to tell you that I’m thinking about you a lot. And you’re not alone. Not really.”

Dr. Mercer sniffs once every few seconds but is otherwise silent for a long stretch. Dex is afraid to blink for fear that her ghost might appear, right in front of him. He’s about to fast forward when she continues:

“You’re never as alone as you think you are. Try to remember what we’ve talked about. Do your breathing exercises, write things down, talk to _yourself_ if you can’t talk to anyone else. I’ll be in to see you next week. Keep your chin up, Dex. This isn’t forever.”

There’s a staticky shuffling that cuts out with another pop.

A slow, sweeping piano phrase builds, and a woman starts to sing. _Load up on guns and bring your friends, it’s fun to lose and to pretend_ — 

The player slips from his numb fingers and smashes on the floor, ejecting the tape and sending it to skitter off under the table like a cockroach fleeing the light. The loose headphone cord caresses his arm — a spider, crawling along his skin — and he jumps, violently brushing it away, ripping the headset from his ears.

The taste of blood rolls along his tongue.

Summer 1998. A sweltering, mind-numbing afternoon, his lip split and stinging, and blood smeared across the other kid’s face, running from a broken nose. A humid, sticky, unbearable night, little razor cuts on the inside of his left arm, where he thought no one would see them. A messy line of bruises around his throat from where he’d tried to make the noise stop with an old t-shirt and the doorknob of the dormitory bathroom.

Then, two months of nothing. Two months of screaming just to hear, slapping himself in the face and biting his own arms, just to feel.

He remembers, now, his first session with Dr. Mercer when he was in solitary. How she’d turned away from him, and when she turned back, her eyes were glassy.

Her voice wasn’t the same after that.

He grasps blindly for his phone and takes it with him to lean against the sofa, bracing himself against it to keep from sliding to the floor. Tries to force his breaths into some kind of order: in through the nose, out through the mouth, slow, measured, controlled. A hysterical cackle bursts from his throat.

Control.

Right.

He thumbs open his contacts list and starts a new text, _Julie can you meet me? Please, I really—_ “Fuck!”

‘Fucked that up, too, don’t you remember? Christ, what the fuck is _wrong_ with you?’

The stitching at the mouth of his boot presses against the cut on his foot as he shoves them on one after the other, and he slams the door on the way out without bothering to lock it. Figures he’ll make it easy for Ray to break in this time.

.-- .. - .... / - .... . / .-.. .. --. .... - ... / --- ..- - / .. - ... / .-.. . ... ... / -.. .- -. --. . .-. --- ..- ....-- .. - .... / - .... . / .-.. .. --. .... - ... / --- ..- - / .. - ... / .-.. . ... ... / -.. .- -. --. . .-. --- ..- ...

_Ifeelstupidandcontagiousifeelstupidandcontagiousifeelstupidandcontagious_.

The sway of the dirty, speckled bird’s egg linoleum covering the car floor sets a tempo for the words, kind of. Dex times them to the _clack-clack_ _clack-clack_ as the subway careens down the tracks. There are at least three people in his peripheral vision, sizing him up out of _their_ peripheries, deciding whether his muttering is a harbinger of things-requiring-MTA-intervention to come. Their eyes look wary, hostile, but he tries not to let paranoia get the better of him. That’s how you get two months involuntary institutionalization, after all. That’s how you get put on administrative leave, don’t you know.

He takes the line down to the end and gets off without knowing where he is. The light bouncing off the floor had been warmer for the tail end of the trip, so he knows they’re somewhere above-ground. Another commuter shoulders past him as he’s stepping out of the car, and anger pierces his chest in a hot spike, but he pinches his mouth down to a line. _Shut up shut up shut up._ The subway platform is open-air and as soon as he turns toward the gaping maw of the exit stairwell he knows exactly where the subway’s spit him out. Beyond a few low, sea-torn buildings, the afternoon sun glints off twisted spindles of metal in blinding strobes. Coney Island.

The smell of hotdogs and ocean rot hits him as soon as he exits the station, sharp winter wind stinging his face and making tears well in his eyes, and he starts walking. He takes Stillwell all the way down to the boardwalk, toes shoving themselves hard up against the stiff material of his boots, clammy feet sliding in his too-loose, too-rough socks. Walks too fast, almost jogs, the whole way. At least now if he can’t breathe, it’s because the wind is ripping the air from him before he can get it to his lungs. At least now, his hands and his face feel like they’re on fire because he’s out on the boardwalk in nothing but a thin, denim jacket and jeans in the middle of January. Finally, these things are happening for a reason, not because he’s losing his goddamned mind.

He makes his way west along the beach, far down near the water, toward the lighthouse. The muscles in his legs burn with every loamy step through the sand. Looking out across the ocean toward the horizon, he lets the tide lap against his shoes until his feet are numb, until the wind has ripped the feeling away from every nerve in his body and the roar of it in his ears whites out every thought in his head. He could just close his eyes and walk into the sea, let the salt eat away his flesh and his blood and his bones, down to nothing.

Vertigo washes over him, pushing him back into the sand. A foam of bile surges up into his mouth, slamming him back into his own body, back into his own senses. He coughs it up onto the beach and wipes his mouth on his jacket sleeve, salty grit mingling with acid, scouring his tongue.

How long would it take for someone to find him out here? If he lies here all night, maybe the wind will push enough sand up against his back, up over him, to bury him in a shallow grave. It sounds nice. Peaceful. He’s drifted into a daze, only half-aware of his surroundings, when his stomach groans pitifully.

Food. He can’t remember the last time he ate. There’s a bodega, back near the station. He dimly remembers balking at the blur of New Year’s decorations still plastering the windows. It’s a struggle to get up, joints cold and achy, and he sits there for a minute while he gets his bearings, watches the gulls dive recklessly to and fro. There’s a storm brewing muddy and black on the horizon. They’re probably trying to catch their last meals before it arrives. He brushes the sand from his jeans and pushes through the first agonizing step. He should take the boardwalk instead of the beach, but with any luck, this will exhaust him enough to make sleep easy, tonight.

When he finally makes it to the bodega, an irritating, electronic chime greets him. The middle-aged man behind the counter doesn’t seem to notice it, fixated on a newspaper splashed with headlines in a language Dex doesn’t recognize. Something Cyrillic. A radio whispers from a back room — the rapid cadence of the small print at the end of an ad — and the gale outside rattles the windows.

Inside, it’s warm and still, and all of Dex’s energy spills out onto the creaky wooden floor of the shop. Without the winter slicing through him, there’s nothing to keep him going and he stares into a beverage display without any focus or purpose. _I feel stupid, and contagious_. Normally, he avoids caffeine, the benefit rarely justifying the way it makes his anxieties rise and shift, but he’s considering making an exception. He’s worried if he doesn’t do _something_ he’ll pass out without taking another step, let alone making it back to the station.

‘That’s one way to get back,’ he thinks. ‘On a stretcher.’

The soft rustle of locust wings as the man at the front turns to the next page of his paper. _Stupid, and contagious._ Dex feels his eyes start to drift shut and he sways on his feet. Over-corrects and bumps a rack of cheap wine. The bottles rattle out a warning, and the shopkeeper clears his throat in disapproval.

 _Hello_. Dex watches the shopkeeper from the security mirror. _Hello_. He’s still got the newspaper in front of his face, but it’s obvious in his posture that he isn’t actually reading it. _Hello_. Dex rolls his eyes and shuffles along the wall of refrigerators. _How low_.

_Hello, hello, hello, how low._

He tries to push the words away, a whine wheezing up through his nose, and all of the blessed emptiness he’d felt out at the edge of the ocean is gone, replaced by the blank, crushing drawl of that summer. Heat leeches up into his face, stings his nose and eyes, and he shakes his head, trying again to rid himself of it.

_Hello, hello, hello, how low._

“Mister,” the shopkeeper’s voice comes low and harsh, “If you’re on drugs you need to leave. You can’t stay here, we don’t got nothing for you.”

Dex ignores him, focuses on breathing: in for four, hold for four, out for four, hold for four. _With the lights out, it’s less dangerous_. In for four. _Here we are now, entertain us_. Hold for four. _I feel stupid, and contagious_. Out for four. _Here we are now, entertain us_. Hold for four. _A mulatto, an albino, a mosquito, my libi—_

“Shut _up!_ ” he roars, voice chipping and ricocheting around the small space. He doesn’t know if he’s talking to himself, or the shopkeeper, or — 

A tinny voice, filtering in from the back room: ‘And I forget just why I taste; oh yeah, I guess it makes me smile. I found it hard, it's hard to find. Oh well, whatever, nevermind.’

Or the radio. A laugh bubbles up from deep in his chest, voice shattering with relief. The radio, it had been the radio. He’s fine, he’s not losing it, it was just the radio. Hot tears well in his eyes, and the flush has left his face enough that he can feel the burning trails they leave down his cheeks. He sniffs a little and coughs, still laughing. His feet are light as he leaves the bodega, the shopkeeper on the line with police dispatch, and when Dex steps back out into the wind, he feels like he’s dancing with it. He hasn’t felt this free since— Since a cold night, somewhere far away: the smell of paper and toner and blood. Stale coffee, rubber, fear-sweat, and gunpowder. Something just out of his reach, curled up sleeping below the tension of a surface he’s too afraid to break.

.... . .-.. .-.. --- / .... . .-.. .-.. --- / .... . .-.. .-.. --- / .... --- .-- / .-.. --- .--.... . .-.. .-.. --- / .... . .-.. .-.. --- / .... . .-.. .-.. --- / .... --- .-- / .-.. --- .--

Unease slams down around him in a pall the second he steps into his apartment. He’s bone-tired but his heart is racing, palms clammy with sweat. The tension dissipates in shallow waves once he flips on the lights, but he can still feel it there, licking out from the edges.

There’s a muddy, oleander bloom of blood on the lining of his right boot when he slips it off, and the fibers of his sock make the cut throb as they shift and pull at it, worked into the wound. _Contagiouscontagiouscontagious—_ Panic lances through him at the sight of the stained material, and he turns to grab a washcloth, he needs to clean it, he needs to—

Something clatters against his bedroom floor, slithers, and falls back into silence. His pulse picks up until he feels like his heart is crawling up the back of his throat, like he could just open his mouth and spit it out into the kitchen sink. Dex knows exactly who broke in the night before, knows that he could kill him without breaking a sweat, and still he’s jumping at shadows and strange noises. In his own fucking home. Loathing swells in his chest and a sharp noise of disgust escapes when he exhales.

He leans farther into the living room _Ifeelstupidstupid_ peeking through the doorframe _stupid_ little Danny Torrance watching a hallway fill with blood through his fingers _stupid_. “Stupid,” he mutters to himself, so far under his breath the word barely leaves his throat. He’s acting like a child. He’s being fucking ridiculous.

His breath hangs suspended behind the valley of his collarbones, and every tiny hair on the back of his neck rises when he sees it.

Blood, on the floor, seeping out from under his bed in the gloom. Soaking into the floorboards. Viscera pooling and piling up in strange little mounds, reaching toward him like grasping fingers. What... _How_. How did it get there? If there were that much blood, he’d— he’d smell it, he’d have seen it, he’d _know_. He’d _remember_.

He tries to think, tries to remember what else had happened last night. The police. Then, the tapes. Then...nothing. Fitful sleep, shards of dreams. “What did you _do_?” his voice shakes into the dark of his bedroom. He stands, rooted to the spot, for a long time. Watching the blood. Tracing the ripples and ridges of it.

He isn’t sure how long it takes for him to realize that it’s not blood at all.

Fabric.

He toes at it suspiciously and grabs it off the floor after a moment of deliberation. Some kind of latex composite, if he had to guess. And it’s not new: it smells like stale sweat and blood, and something familiar that he can’t quite place amidst the severity of the rest. He folds it carefully, bemused, as if it were something of a former lover’s. An old t-shirt, unearthed from the back of a closet on moving day.

He wonders where it came from, as he’s drifting to sleep that night. Wonders who left it, and why, or if it had always been there.

.- / -.. . -. .. .- .-...- / -.. . -. .. .- .-...- / -.. . -. .. .- .-...- / -.. . -. .. .- .-...- / -.. . -. .. .- .-...- / -.. . -. .. .- .-...- / -.. . -. .. .- .-...- / -.. . -. .. .- .-..

Blood falls to the sink basin in fat drops, pooling against his razor where it had landed, the blades wedged up against the drain. With trembling fingers, he presses a crumpled square of toilet paper to the cut on this face, little red blossoms appearing against the white.

His aftershave. The suit smells like his aftershave. Why the _fuck_ does that thing smell like him?

He grips the edge of the sink to stop the shaking in his hands, watches as his knuckles pale to yellow, then white, then an anemic grey. There are shadows under his eyes, stark against the ashen pallor of his face, bruise-black eyes darting from point to sunken point along his reflection. A smoldering ember of pain in the pit of his chest prods at him, and he draws a slow hiss between his teeth. Lets go of the sink and shakes out his hands. It doesn’t help much, but it steadies him enough that he’s able to clear the rest of the stubble from his face. He only cuts himself twice more, after that.

Both accidents.

He doesn’t use any aftershave and watches his reflection out of the corner of his eye as he exits the bathroom.

Hair neatly combed and teeth brushed, he starts a pot of decaf and sifts through the heap of unread mail strewn across his kitchen’s tiny breakfast bar. He pulls out the two most recent copies of the _Bulletin_ and spreads the older one open on the table. Turns almost all the way to the back, but not quite. It’s easier, starting at the end. That way he can get the little stuff out of the way, ease his way into focussing on the stories like he’s slipping into a freezing lake.

He’s careful to avoid the Classifieds. Doesn’t need the reminder that other people are out there, going about their business, working their usual nine-to-fives.

There’s an article about a string of drug busts at a local pharmacy chain. One about the emotional and mental rewards of rescuing abandoned animals. Sounds like something Julie’d write, if she were a reporter. The corners of his mouth tighten in a smile, but it doesn’t last.

‘Remember, remember what she did. She left you for the wolves, left you to be eaten alive, and she probably didn’t even bat an eye.’

He skips to the next story mid-sentence.

It’s a piece about the host of _TrishTalk_ longer but harder to concentrate on — vapid and unmoving. Dex listens to her show sometimes, especially likes the stuff she’s been covering about Supers, and she seems like a nice enough person, but the article focuses so heavily on speculation about the status of her relationship with that news anchor — Griffin something-or-other — that it’s hard to really lose himself in it. The desire to dig up other people’s personal bullshit has always eluded him, and it’s a sore point for him now that his dirt’s been splashed across the front page.

‘She’s probably used to it,’ he thinks.

Bitter. Envious.

She’s Patsy, after all; her whole life’s one big tabloid.

The last article describes a recent attack on _Bulletin_ headquarters by Daredevil. The details are familiar, a faint itch just inside his subconscious. He reads most of the article without really processing the words, questions ricocheting around his skull.

Where was he that night?

He flips to the front page to check the date. January 23rd. The day he’d been put on leave. He’d gone into the office. Only remembers half his conversation with Hattley and Winn but remembers talking to Ray on the way out. Missed his stop on the way home and hadn’t realized it until Prospect Park. Stopped to pick up his prescriptions after backtracking. And then, nothing. 

Must have turned in early.

As he’s leaning against the counter, taking little pulls off his lukewarm cup of coffee and mulling over his mental timeline, he realizes he must have heard about the attack from Lim. Lim’s the only person he’s been in contact with since being put on leave, aside from Ray. But unlike Ray, Lim doesn’t have a bone to pick with Dex.

‘That’s what you thought about Ray, too, ‘til last night.’

The coffee sits heavy and sour in his stomach, and he dumps the rest of it into the sink, watches it swirl down the drain, the grounds at the bottom of the pot fighting against the current.

Dr. Mercer had hammered it into his head that keeping a routine is instrumental in coping with stress, pain, loss. He’d thought it might help. To pretend that his entire life isn’t crashing down around his head.

Boneless and heavy, he sinks down onto the sofa. His work shirt and slacks press against him, etching little creases of misuse into the backs of his knees and along his sides. An alarm blares in the back of his mind, screaming at him: if you lie here much longer, you won’t be able to get that out with an iron, you’ll have to get everything dry cleaned, you’ll have to— He smothers it. It doesn’t matter anymore.

The living room’s diffused with the dull palette of late afternoon-early evening when he comes back to what’s left of himself. He doesn’t know if he slept or if he’d spent most of the day in some kind of fugue state, isn't sure he _wants_ to know. One of his knees pops as he drags himself into a sitting position, and stars burst behind his eyes when he rubs at them. His right cheek is stippled with the same tight-woven texture as his throw pillows. The feeling of it against his fingers is repetitive, soothing. Predictable.

He drags his hands down his face with a rough sigh and gets up to change into a t-shirt and sweats. So much for a routine.

His apartment is a mess. He considers calling his super to tell him about the hole he put in the drywall, but he’s worked enough Habitat for Humanity jobs in his day to know how to fix it himself. There’s a Home Depot nearby and he can’t justify the trouble or the stress, in the end. He sweeps up the broken shards of his alarm clock, throws the batteries in the junk drawer, and pulls out the vacuum to get the rest. May as well just do the whole place while he’s at it. He goes about his work mindlessly, letting the hum of the vacuum lull him into twilight.

A soft _tink_ and the sound of something heavy sliding along the floor break him from his stupor as he pushes the vacuum under the edge of the bedframe. He pulls the vacuum back and lets it whir angrily beside him as he stares at the space between the bedframe and the floor.

A chill races up his spine, making his shoulders cinch up toward his ears, as if he’s expecting some sort of nightmare creature to slither out from the space. A tense frown pulls at the corners of his mouth, and he tentatively resumes his vacuuming, making a concerted effort to avoid the spot that had produced the noise.

He moves to the foot of the bed, sweeping the vacuum under the frame at an angle, and there’s the noise again, louder this time, harsher. The roar of an enormous beast from the depths of a cavern. He jumps back slightly, stumbling and slamming down onto his knees as his injured foot tangles in the vacuum’s cord.

“God— _Fuck_ ,” he shouts, swatting at the vacuum’s power switch with his left hand.

It takes him a minute to steady his breath, to slow his racing heart. After what feels like an eternity notating the dings and scuffs in his bedroom flooring, he takes a last, huge breath and forces it back out through pursed lips, muttering to himself. ‘Such a fucking idiot, such a _child_.’

He has to force his jaw to unlock, has to force himself to stop grinding his teeth, and the empty space he wrenches open between them feels like a gaping wound. _Stuuuuuupid and contagious._ His bicep presses up against the bottom of the frame hard enough to bruise as he casts around underneath the bed for the source of the noise. He doesn’t store things under his bed, has no idea what it could be, something must have fallen and been pushed under there, must have— 

There.

Cold, smooth, round. No, not completely round. Something round, punctuated by sharp edges. Beveled, not enough of an edge to cut, but enough to pierce, enough to do harm. The sound as he drags it out of hiding is different, without the dissonance of the vacuum motor. The ominous growl, now replaced with something innocuous: the cry of a metal chair pushed back from a dinner table amidst an argument.

All the puzzle pieces fall into place as he pulls the helmet into the evening gloom, gently running his fingers over the curved peaks of the horns, along ridges of eye sockets. He cradles it in his lap like it’s something precious. He knows, with absolute certainty, if he checks his phone, he won’t find any texts from Lim, won’t find his name in the call log.

Paper, blood, toner, coffee, sweat.

The _Bulletin_.

All this time, he’d thought he was swimming for the surface, fingernails splitting with the effort of trying to drag himself from the water. But now, he can feel it for what it really is. He’s not scrabbling at the surface; he’s tearing his hands against the rocky floor, silt working itself into every bloody gash, every crack.

“Stupid,” he spits, voice soft and loving, catching on the edge of defeat. “So _fucking_ stupid.”

He puts the helmet on with hands that no longer have the will to tremble in uncertainty, all of his denials evaporating from him like an early-morning mist in the thick of summer. The weight of the metal coaxes his head back against the edge of his mattress, and he thinks, ‘Maybe I can be free, like this. Maybe this is finally what I’m supposed to be, what I’m supposed to do.’

It’s safe and dark, with the helmet tying him up in a red haze, anchoring him. He lets the sea water soothe his bloodied hands and slides the rest of the way down, toward the black depths that no one ever sees.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm at ratketeering on tumblr dot com if you want to talk about that tone whiplash between seasons 2 & 3 or how Cute and Good Mark Waid & Chris Samnee's run on DD is.


End file.
